Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

I'm sure Freac will have plenty to say about this, but I'll quickly give you the bullet points, as someone who's seen the series--one, I will grant you that in a vacuum, Aang could be seen as white, but in the context of the Avatar universe, his tribe is very distinctly Chinese. Sokka and Katara, "his friends", are derived largely from Inuit culture--it's odd that you see them as ambiguous as well, because I think the best case one could possibly make for Aang's whiteness would be to put him in front of Sokka and Katara, exactly as the picture above does.

Regarding the movie--if it were only Aang who had been made white, that would at least be a plausible misunderstanding/reinterpretation of the material, but not only did they make Sokka and Katara, and Aang, into white children, but the two prominent Indian characters you mention are the bad guys, and members of the "evil" fire tribe--which, in the show, is roughly Japanese-derived, and generally portrayed as lighter-skinned than Aang's or Katara/Sokka's tribes.

So, in short--the darkest-skinned characters, who happened to be protagonists, became whiter, and the lightest-skinned characters, who happened to be antagonists, became darker. All in all, they took a story that was 100% nonwhite characters (which, I admit, could be a relatively fair criticism of the show except no one ever seems to mention it) and made it, per your own numbers, into a story with 53% nonwhite characters.

 

Isn't the whole concept of Zuko's plot that he goes from being a bad guy, having a journey, and then becoming a good guy? In the cartoon what is Zuko's importance to the plot? In the film he seems to be a lead character to me.

I've only seen the cartoon in very small amounts but does it ever specifically mention that the lead characters are chinese and inuit? Or are we assuming that they are inuit and chinese because one knows martial arts and the others live where its cold outside? I'm just curious because again the visuals don't back up what you are saying.

 

That's the arc of the entire series, yeah, but my understanding (haven't bothered with the movie myself) is that it only covers the first third of the story. His uncle, the guy played by Shaun Toub, is also actually one of the most moral and respectable characters in the entire story, but as the brother of the Fire Lord and one of their greatest generals, he's still ostensibly a bad guy--think TTT Pellaeon.

The series designs, really, are all over the place, but each tribe "tends" to revolve around one or two specific cultures. That said, it's a fantasy world where the labels "Chinese" or "Inuit" wouldn't actually mean anything--which is the same problem SW has to a large degree.

 

Inuit people look very specific though, as do Chinese people. It would not have been hard for the series to make that point clear frankly.

In the film Zoku is clearly a character struggling with his place in his family and nation becasue he is somewhat at odds with how they operate. His Uncle, the Iranian actor, is exactly as you describe him in the film as well. Sure the fire tribe are the villians or antaganists but it also pretty much shows the Earth tribe as Chinese, iirc.

I see what you saying of course, despite Jello's oversimplification of what I'm saying. I'm not creating a list here for the sake of a list. I watched the film never having seen the cartoon beforehand and thought it was an interesting and very diverse film that showed the Fire Clan as a diverse nation that didn't break down to everyone being a "bad guy" - it clearly showed that there were good guys and bad guys in that group . It made a black character Aang's mentor and father figure.

It struck me as a completely novel concept that this nation of darker skinned people, while being the villians in a basic sense(though I found nuance there as I said) were the dominate nation in that world. You mention Pellaeon, well the Fire Nation was the Empire in this film. How many times have we ever seen that portrayed in a North American film?

This didn't automatically make them all mustache twirling villians, in fact far from it. So would the film have been more acceptable in your eyes if they made Aang asian, his friends Inuit(I still see no similarity there. I own a pair of show shoes and that doesn't make me inuit) and have the Fire Clan portaryed as all white characters? Would that have made the story better?

I dunno.

 

But screenwriters are focused on telling a good story, so shouldn't have their hands tied needing to worry about details like appearances, so you need to give them some free space to reimagine characters in order to make a better film! </sequel argument>

Before anyone completely goes and misreads this post, I am quite clearly being facetious.

 

Pretty Good Break down. I want highlight some points.

No there is no justification. There are no white people in the world. I mean seriously its not even ambiguous like some Anime. Also Aang is more Tibetan.

Also lets note that they white washed all the Heroes and made all the bad guys Brown. The Fire Nation was light skinned

Not to mention they used fake Chinese Characters when the show used real ones.

 

Meh I have no patience from Rob and his bs arguments that typically come from self entightled white males. Seriously, white males in no way suffer from lack of representation in America as heroes. Its whitewashing pure and simple. Besides making the dark skinned people evil is not novel at all it happens all the frakking time especially in Disney Movies. Jafar is darker then Aladdin, Scar is darker then Simba, etc. Funny how a character never needs to be spelled out as European but must unambigously be called Inuit for them not to be turned white.

 

Let's not make it personal--or make assumptions about other posters.

 

Of course, no one seemed to care that four of the mains were voiced by white actors, either.

 

I said Typically not always. I am not going to play nice on this issue. Especially since Rob never watched the show (ie source material) so its not like he knows what he is talking about anyway.

 

I never care about the voice actors personally. Certainly not when I was in middle school watching the show.

 

Wait....hold up....

Aang I could maybe sorta understand if you go by skin color alone, but you think his friends, the dark browned skinned people in the Inuit clothing, look white?

I am pretty baffled here.

 

I think calling them "dark skinned" might be pushing things. They're certainly tanner than Aang, but looking at them alone with their bright blue eyes doesn't scream "inuit". Kind of like Aladdin's features had some very caucasian features to him.

 

Wow, that was a hell of a 180 you did there.

 

I think calling water tribe people tanned is the stretch. (I wish I had time for better pictures.) If anything, they are usually depicted with darker skin than actual Inuits.

Yes, they have blue eyes, cause they are associated with water. I mean, the Fire Nation have gold eyes and the Air Nomads have gray eyes, but no one makes big deal out of those.

Beside, contrary to popular belief, green and blue eyes are by no means European only traits. Genghis Khan was a green eyed red head, and still very much Asian.

As for Aladdin - well, for one, Arabs are Caucasian, so it is no surprise that he would have Caucasian features. And in any case there was a lot of migration and geneflow between Arabia and Europe - which is probably the biggest problem with any definition of race - intermarriage and migration makes it impossible to clearly draw the line between one race and another.

Fun fact time: In the original story, Aladdin was Chinese. It just happened to be a China with a Sultan and Arab dress and traditions. So, white washing and the equivalent has a long history.

 

Is Anakin not white because James Earl Jones is Black?

Is Ash Ketchum not a male because he voiced by female voice actors?

 

I do wonder about Ash, but I was talking more about your hard-line attitude regarding Rob's opinion versus your mitigation of your own lack of knowledge because "hey, I was a kid".

 

I never had a problem with Aladdin, but there was controversy in that some thought they made his features too Western/American while caricaturing the Arab features of characters like evil Jafar and the Sultan. I've never thought it that big a deal because there are plenty of Middle Easterners, Hispanics, Native Americans, and other ethnic groups who could easily pass as European/white, I would imagine some of it largely in part to the intermarriage and migration you mention.

I guess to me Sokka and Katara have features that one might typically think as "white" that they can simply pass for darker complexioned Caucasians to me. Katara more than Sokka.

 

I know who the voice actors are now but I in no way cared in middle school. Still my point is its in no way relevant to the gender or race/ethnicity of the character

 

And I agree with you. My point is, maybe don't be a dick to Rob because he doesn't see it the way we do. That's what keeps people out of this thread.

 

I can appreciate why people would feel otherwise--and maybe it's just my fond childhood memories talking--but I really do think Aladdin was a net positive from a diversity standpoint; in the same way that Mulan or Princess and the Frog were. Was it simple-minded and whitewashy? Absolutely. But they're children's movies--it's not like Beauty and the Beast had ****-all to do with France. Disney has never been up to the intellectual standard of something like TLA, but that doesn't mean they're the devil, either.

 

Were the dark skinned people in the The Last Airbender film all evil?

You know what I saw in that film? I saw the most powerful and advanced nation to appear on the screen being represented by Indian actors. Thats what I'm talking about when I say novel - these guys are shown to be the British Empire, instead of being ruled by the British Empire. Yes, they were doing the wrong thing and a part of the overall story clearly would be about Zuko, one of their own people stepping up to put them on the right track, if it was ever to be finished.

Would the film have been more diverse if those three characters were cast as different ethnicities? Yes it would have - but that doesn't mean that the film is not still very diverse in its own right.

Now seeing those other images that Merc Ace posted up I can see where that impression comes from more. Some of those people do look Inuit(note I interact with Inuit people on a regular basis so perhaps my own real world views of what they should look like is being affected by my own real life intereactions). I still don't think those two friends of Aang's really fit the part though. That dude could be a young Antonio Banderas as easy as anything.

I really feel like after talking to you all today that some of the problems with this film stem more from the film not living up to childhood expectations of a favorite franchise more than anything more concrete. I mean do you guys really think that the kid they cast to play Aang doesn't look like the character?

Mulan is a great example of this. Those characters were clearly Asian in appearance. No one needed to guess.

And I was upfront about not being familiar with the cartoon. That said the episodes I did watch never for a second made me think that those characters were suppost to be what your advert ising them as. I never saw the the water folks tribe in cartoon form before today.

What I did base my opinion on is having watched this film that was "completely white washed" according to Freac, and I still maintain that comment is just flat out not true. I can definitly see why you have the opinions you have about the show. That movie had black chacaters that were good guys, Asian characters that were presented as good guys, Indian characters that were presented as both good and bad depending on the character, so on, so forth. Yes, Aang and his friends were played by white actors, and diversity would have been better served if they were not, but that in and of itself should not condemn the entire film.

If nothing else I think it was a pretty big step for a Hollywood franchise(which is what the film was meant to be) to thrust Dev Patel into a lead role as likely the second most important character in the story(correct me if I'm wrong about his importance in the cartoon, but in the film he seemed just as important as Aang) and let him run with it. Frankly he was the most interesting character in the film due to the journey he's making.

All I hear is condemnation, stuff about how the Fire Nation was all evil from top to bottom(when the film even portrays some conflict in Zuko's father).

Now I realize I've apparently touched a nerve here with fans of this show, sorry about that - but I think there is something to be said for making Asian characters look Asian and Inuit characters look Inuit more than putting a white cartoon character in front of me and telling me he's the asian guy.

 

Even if the Last Airbender was in any way progressive, it was still a terrible, terrible movie. Do you really think Paramount execs are gonna want to replicate anything from that flick after the critical disaster it was?

I'd think the asian art style, asian aesthetics, and world based on asian spirituality is enough to infer that the characters are, in fact, asian.

 

Thats secondary to the discussion. It is not a great film for certain, but that doesn't mean they were trying to produce a racist manifesto either.